How do Latin names work? I don't know why I'm so confused. I thought my whole life names like Titus and Augustus were the original names, but the inscriptions on Roman monuments are Tito and Augusto and Septimio etc. Are those the originals (how they were referred to back in ancient Rome), and the -us suffix we use just an Anglicization of it?

Some Christian scholars say the new testament is the most well preserved document from the ancient world. Now, most of those scholars say it is one of the most, but in areas like this things tend to be vague as to what is the most of anything. Besides this, I was wondering what other documents are the most well preserved.

So, what other documents are the most well preserved and why?

Also, I'm interested in methodology for determining how well preserved a text is exactly.

Given that coins were being pressed continously, was it possible to people to forge money?

If I was a wealthy merchant who had picked up a few golden treasures, would it be possible for me to melt them into liquid gold and then dip cheaper metals into it in order to coat them in gold?

Taking Winston S. Churchill's quote literally; are there recordings of war victors in some way overwriting the history books to make themselves or their country/culture look better/nobler?

I'm interested in the whole of medieval Europe. However, if that's too general, I'm interested in the specific case of how England managed to recover from the Anarchy enough to mount a Great Revolt against King Henry II.

There is a popular image of medieval warfare as a scorched earth, take-no-prisoners affair. Historical and fantasy fiction tends to depict the burning of crops and the slaughter of civilians and soldiers alike. But if soldiers raid the storehouses and burn the fields during the first war, where do soldiers rations for the second war come from? Surely some amount of agricultural surplus is required to keep the soldiers fed. How did these surpluses get replenished so quickly after such devastation? Similarly, if soldiers killed all the enemy combatants and by standing peasants then who was left to levy into later wars?

Was warfare less devastating or did medieval economies and populations just rebound quickly?

Being one of the defining moments of that war, there has to be evidence of it online. It's been referenced in movies and books, but I have not seen it, nor have my many searches turned it up.

I'd like to see video specifically, of the legendary moment where he supposedly steps from behind the news desk for the first time, points at a map, and says something along the lines of, "This is not winnable." Or to that effect.

Did creating combinations of food develop from a time of surplus when there are varieties of food or was it developed to make what little food there is bearable (creating dressings for an otherwise tasteless salad). Did it happen for civilizations at different times or was it brought about by one nation that spread culinary methods through travel and trade?

Thinking in Western societies.

Are there any significant indicators that we believe empires or states to have exhibited prior to collapse? If so, is there an established methodology for understanding the decline of states, or do cultural differences between time and place render this too problematic?

What I am trying to get at is: what did the British people consider the greatest threat to their own self-determination? As 'Rule Britannia' famously says: "Britons never, ever shall be slaves."

So what was the closest that Britain got (or the closest Britons thought they were) to losing their sovereignty in actuality? Was it the threat of the Spanish Armada? Napoleon? Hitler's Battle of Britain? I know that this question is incredibly broad and may be difficult to answer, but I am interested to hear the opinions of this community. Any information would be appreciated!

The USSR had a supreme court, but there is only a two sentence blurb on its Wiki page.

What did it do?

Did it have power or was it just another tool or the party?

Did that role evolve much over the life of the USSR?

To expand, I sometimes have discussions about history with my mother, who was born and raised in the post-WWII south. I've, with help from this subreddit, explained that the institution of slavery was obviously the cause of disunion, as she was taught the entire war was over a heated debate over state's rights that turned bloody.

I am aware that, until the latter half of the war, Union soldiers were motivated to preserve the Union, and not to end slavery. However, I'm not so sure about why Confederate soldiers fought. She maintains that their personal motivation was State's Rights and as such, it is accurate to say the war was fought over state's rights, even if it was started by slavery. Can anyone enlighten our discussion?

Edit: Could anyone provide a good source of primary documents of soldiers at the time? My mother is convinced that, do to education level at the time, "Preserve the Union" was too complicated for most people to understand enough to the point they'd ever consider fighting. I'm pretty sure that's bunk.

Edit again: Just had a follow up with my mother, she still has her question. I'll let her ask it:

Was the common soldier from the north able to be told 'you are fighting to preserve the union' and be willing to pick up a gun without being conscripted? And was the common soldier in the south, ie a sharecropper or dirt farmer willing to pick up a gun to preserve state's rights? Were either ways reasonable ways to draw volunteers? Would those statements have meant anything to the 'common man' of the day? If not, what was used to get the average volunteer fighting?

I've heard that the reason societies switched from bronze to iron was not because iron was a better material, but because it was more available.

However, the Iliad (I believe?) makes mention of an ingot of iron being presented as a prize, so apparently it was seen as quite valuable. Why would this be the case if it was so much more common than copper or tin?

I've also heard that bronze age societies didn't produce iron weapons because iron has a much higher melting point, and they didn't have furnaces hot enough. But bronze age cultures did make iron artifacts throughout the bronze age, so that can't be right, can it?

Some people counter the "iron is superior to bronze" idea (which I think is widely believed by non-historians) by saying that in fact bronze is superior to iron. It has a lower melting point, it can be cast, it's resistant to corrosion, and I would imagine that it's easier to control for its hardness/flexibility (since copper is soft, and bronze becomes hard by adding tin).

If this is true, why did societies make the switch at all? Is it because the collapse of trade networks necessitated the switch to local metals? Those trade networks were eventually reestablished - did that have an impact on the use and manufacture of bronze goods in later eras?

Sorry, this is a lot of questions. But I would appreciate any insights about any one of them!

Nowadays, there seems to be a lot of controversy over lethal injections and how humane they are. From what I can tell, hanging seems like the ideal form of execution. The neck is broken instantly, there's not really any mess to be cleaned up, and it works every time. Why did the nations of the world stop doing it?

As a Brazilian who grew up in the 90's, I grew up watching tokusatsus and Shounen animes. The media wasn't wrong in accusing the animations of being brutally violent (the live actions, not so much), and therefore sensationalist, but this wasn't why my generation loved them. They had this emotional depth, this gritty feeling, this catharsis that I later discovered adults called tragic.

Protagonists with tragic flaws; moral choices and opposition of parties with different virtues; fatalism. I remember seeing it in Zodiac Knights and Kamen Rider; and more recently in Attack on Titan and Neon Genesis Evangelion. This set them apart from the American products. Kids in Brazil learn to despise American mass culture early, but the attitude towards Japanese pop culture is much more respectful because it doesn't seemed as brainless or commercial to us.

How did Shounen media developped characteristics so close to the western idea of tragedy or maturity? Or why didn't Western juvenile media? Is that related to the perceived violence of Shounen?

I read a biography on Reinhard Heydrich and I was surprised by the sheer amount of competing factions in the Nazi government. However since the biography did focus on Heydrich, the book only mentioned political factions when it concerned Heydrich's power. How many factions were there, how influential were these factions, and did this factional infighting affect the out come of the war.